A black mark on what otherwise actually looks like a pretty cool set. Transform's incommodious use and somewhat blasphemous eradication of the unwritten (or possibly written, I don't know for sure) rule about the preservation of Magic's traditional card back will blow over in due time, but I'm afraid that its impact on in-person drafting will not, especially when you consider the fact that there will be a card with Transform in every single pack. The mechanic itself is quite interesting in terms of gameplay, and the double-sided cards will probably all be generally aesthetically pleasing, but utilizing multiple insipid proxies with only one distinguishing mark doesn't sound very fun. So, unfortunately, this appears to be another questionable decision, coming off of three straight dreadful Standard seasons, the controversial upholding of the Reserve List, the ratification of a fourth rarity, smaller set sizes, a poor Modern starting point, etc.
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This is the first time in 12 years of playing this game where I am literally disappointed to see a new block. I say burn this entire set and skip forward to our return to Ravnica. That was my favorite set anyways.
Asylum EDH: Foil or go home.
I think Urza's Block was my favorite, but I started during Mirage Block, so that might be nostalgia talking. Masques and Invasions were pretty smexy, too.This is the first time in 12 years of playing this game where I am literally disappointed to see a new block. I say burn this entire set and skip forward to our return to Ravnica. That was my favorite set anyways.
Return of Urza's anyone? Heh...
I'm here to also express my disappointment with this.
I love the set's flavor. It's a shame that I don't want any part of these double cards.
As others have said, I hope that none of these are tournament playable in Legacy.
OH NO THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!
Seriously guys? This whining is insane. Personally, I think the double-faced cards are an amazing idea. Yes, they might get a little clunky in tourney play. Yes, unsleeving them is odd but you can just not resleeve it until it dies. Problem solved. The flavor on the cards is amazing though. Yes it is reminiscent of flip cards. But flip cards were ugly, confusing on their own, and so cluttered that I can't remember what a single piece of art looked like. And it opens the way for different colors after the transformation. We haven't seen even a sliver of the set, maybe save the world ending prophecies until the whole set is released?
On a better note, the set looks like its going to have a ton of good cards in it. I'm a little dissapointed in werewolves simply because anytime your opponent can choose what happens usually makes a card bad.
Why fix what isn't BROKEN...
There's too many lines of text on that card. :pOriginally Posted by NyxathidHorror
ETA: iI kinda like these, but they're probably going to be a rules nightmare in high-level tournaments, just for the cheating opportunity alone.
What a terrible solution. Why are you amazed by such a clunky and gawdy idea that requires so much workaround compared to other cards?
It is literally the exact same mechanic.The flavor on the cards is amazing though. Yes it is reminiscent of flip cards.
I disagree personally, but one has to do a cost-benefit analysis. It's not enough to say there were things about the flip cards you didn't like and go with the alternative. You have to actually make sure that the alternative is better. And in this case... not so much.But flip cards were ugly, confusing on their own, and so cluttered that I can't remember what a single piece of art looked like.
There is literally no reason at all why this couldn't be done with flip cards using the exact same markers.And it opens the way for different colors after the transformation.
When even its defenders can't come up with more elegant lines of explanation than playing with the card unsleeved, or proxied, or "doing your best" to hide your pack while drafting, I'm not sure why we should hesitate to condemn a mechanic that is exactly identical to flip cards but worse in every practical function, just because some people find it more aesthetically appealing.We haven't seen even a sliver of the set, maybe save the world ending prophecies until the whole set is released?
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
My opinion is that new mechanics, specially these complicated ones that requires workarounds and complex understanding of rules, restricts magic as a game for new players.
I know how they love new mechanics and such, but the already have plenty of room for design with the current ones. I would apreciate if they did a better job with them.
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
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This. It's a good idea in principle, may easily play well, and doesn't reduce the space available for artwork to a miscroscopic dot, but if you need to jump through boring hoops that destroy your cards, get so much potential for misunderstandings and mistakes, and can't get the mechanic to interact with anything outside the block except maybe cantrips, you really have to ask yourself if it's worth the hassle from a design standpoint. Danger of cool things doesn't apply to players only.
What's with the "color circle" and the tiny arrow btw? Are those really necessary?
Oh well, at least transform doesn't interact with Illusionary Mask.
At this point, whining about the mechanic accomplishes nothing. It's not like you are going to prevent it from seeing print.
I'm concerned about this mechanic. I like it for its flavor, the flip cards dont capture the flavor the way this does. A split card could work, but again, this captures the flavor better. The logistics scare me. Having some information revealed during drafting seems fine. That doesn't strike me as a big deal. The sleeving/unsleeving/checklist issues all strike me as troublesome, but we shall see.
In theory, theory should work out the same as in practice. In practice, it doesn't. I'm interested in seeing how these cards function in practice, and untill I have them in my hands, I can't know for sure. Talking in absolutes at this point seems dumb.
Talking about how absolutely terrible this mechanic is may seem dumb, but don't be so quick to judge. Give it some time to see how you feel about it in practice.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I have always been of the opinion that flavor should take a back seat to gameplay 100% of the time. That's why I have such a problem with people pushing the "collectability" aspect. When the prices on tournament necessary singles reach points where events are decided by deep pockets instead of deep intellects, that's a problem. When design pushes the limits on Timmy cards so far that the cards start showing up in Spike games, that's a problem (Eldrazi, BSC, etc.). When they push the aesthetics of the card into a place where it detracts from gameplay, that's a problem. If Magic were just freshly released today instead of being a game I've been involved in for a dozen years, there's no way I would take notice of the game. Wizards is really bad at what they do, but they're the biggest player in the market and as such have a great deal of inertia. They can make mistakes that would kill smaller TCGs on the spot.
I think that their intent is to try and make the game more marketable to young children; to capture the Pokemon/Yu-gi-Oh age crowd. They know they've got the older gamers hooked, after years and years and thousands or tens of thousands invested into this game, we're not going anywhere. So if they can gain market share by pissing us off, why not? Personally, I thought that the flip mechanic was a pretty shitty design to begin with. Coming back to the mechanic, only in a more egregious form, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
lol@Mystic Enforcer
I don't think it's that big of a deal. These double face cards suck but I doubt more than a couple make their way into legacy. I thought removing damage on the stack was going to be really shitty but it turns out that it barely affected the game at.
That said Maro's twitter is obviously nauseating.
And it does look like theyre out of ideas.
Double-sleeving seems like a good solution to maintaining the condition of flip cards. Depending on what outer sleeves one is using, it can be a very quick, painless action to take a double-sleeved card out, flip it over, and put it back in.
Love to see those CB-Top/Fetch/SFM/WereWolves-draw-machine.dec
I can't logically think why they wouldn't just template the transform cards as flip. Once you remove the 2 lines of text on each side of the card you end up with a card that looks like this:
Gustaf Sheepsherder
Creature - Human Werewolf
Flip: no spells cast last turn
2/2
--FLIPPED--
Gustaf Werewolf
Creature - Werewolf
Flip: 2 spells cast
3/3
That's less text than Nezumi Graverobber and no one had trouble with that one.
West side
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It's a very quick, painless action for me to activate Sensei's Divining Top at the end of each of your turns and in response to each spell you play. Yet that was enough for it to be banned in modern, and for people to call for its banning in Legacy at various times in the last few years.
EDIT: Well, I will definitely NOT be participating in any form of limited magic while this abomination of a mechanic is involved (not that I was particularly interested in limited anyways).
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I curious how this will work in the tournament scene, when so much time will be spent pulling a card out of its sleeve, flipping it over, and putting it back into its sleeve. I wonder if they'll come a point when they require you use the checklist cards because of time constraints.
Also, the checklists replace a land, the 15th card in the pack, BUT they aren't playable on there own; you must have a transform card to pair with it. They should have replaced a token or rules card with the checklist. Now some packs will only have 14 playable cards in them. Seems like a blatant oversight.
If there's a DFC in every pack, but only a checklist in every fourth, seems like there will be a shortage of checklists too.
Maro and Lapille, at a minimum, have come out saying they didn't like Kamigawa flip cards.
Maro: "Anyway, Duel Masters made double-faced cards a year or so back. They looked very cool and were quite popular. Tom LaPille had seen them recently, so when I asked how we could make the transformation theme work, Tom suggested we explore double-faced cards. Double-faced cards had plenty of splash going for them, but they had one giant hurdle: the lack of a Magic back. In order to make them we were going to have to solve a number of issues."
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
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